FRIEDA REPLIES

Hallo Hartjie!

I feel like Charlize!! My face on the front page and Bertie and Franco can even see it in ‘Ingeland’.

Hartjie, it was so nice to hear from all the friendly people in your market! Mr BJ Love even said that I am “an honorary gay member of mamba” AND he sent me stax of love! I am sure that is a lot! I told all my friends in Pretoria when I dropped Veratjie off at boarding school! They are so jealous! Please say thank you to all the people that sent me messages!

Thank you for your letter as well, but please call me Frieda!

I am so happy for you guys that the courts finally made it legal for you to get married. It is always so special when people get married and such great fun to plan and organise all the beautiful things that goes with it! You know, I have organised so many weddings here on the farm; most people in the district gets married here because we have a lake and lovely willow trees. Last year one of my friends in Pretoria asked me if her daughter can get married on the farm! It was such an opskop! Hmm! Wait a seccie, I have to get some brandy balls…

Now where was I? O ja… But I cannot understand why some of your organisations say it is too long to wait for another 12 months! We all know that the government takes so long to do anything, and what is 12 months when you have waited forever anyway. But what is even more concerning to me is all the small little “orde reelings” (ED: arrangements). Hartjie, I hope you can help me with this because I don’t want to look like a “square” when one of my friends from Pretoria asks me to help with one of these “new” weddings…

• Payment: The father of the bride normally pays for the venue and food and the father of the groom pays for the flowers and drinks. So how is this going to work now? Does it mean that at a gay wedding you only get drinks and flowers, no food and you sommer do it in the “kerksaal”? And at a lesbian wedding you only eat, in a very nice venue, but have no flowers or drinks?

• Music: Do you think that Nataniel will write a new song for you guys? “Here comes the bride” won’t work except maybe for the lesbians. “Here comes the brides. Big, fat and wide…” Hmm… Maybe Nataniel must write a song for the boys and PJ Powers one for the girls?
• Gifts: Do they make ‘his and his’ or ‘hers and hers’ gift sets? Do you think that the shops will start making this or will we have to buy two ‘his and hers’ sets and re-wrap them ourselves? What happens then if you never get invited to a lesbian wedding?
  
  
• Something that Joseph brought up in the car is “lebola”! How will that work? Will the labola just cancel itself out? Or will you have to get married in pairs of gays and lesbians so that the two men can still pay lebola to the two women? But that just sounds unfair!
• Surnames: Which one will you use or are all gay people going to have double barrel surnames? People will then start thinking that everyone with double barrel surnames are gay. Ag shame…Poor Felicia.
• And there is so much more… Who walks down the aisle? Are there then two ‘best men’? Do the flower girls have to be drag queens? The bride is supposed to be the one who is late, so now the boys wedding will always be on time, but will it ever start for the girls? And do you hold the hen / stag party together?

Haai hartjie! I do hope you can help me with this as I don’t know where to start. Maybe they should postpone this gay wedding thing until everyone knows what to do.

Anyway, please think of me – the twins are still settling down in ‘Ingeland’ and I miss them so much already.

Tarra

Tannie Frieda

Oh and by the way, do you work for Rooi Rose? I see they also have an ‘Ed’ that answers some of their letters.

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Dear Frieda

It is always great fun to hear from you. It seems you have many fans here on Mambaonline. We’ve been quite surprised by the response.

You bring up some interesting questions around same-sex marriage, but unfortunately I don’t really have any answers for you. I think we’re all trying to figure out this marriage thing, and perhaps we’ll just play it by ear. Then again, maybe we should make our own rules and traditions, and not use old and outdated conventions.

Perhaps our readers who are more ‘in the know’ can add their answers to your questions in the comments section below…

Do keep us updated about your family and the goings-on at the farm. And don’t forget to send us a photo of your twins. We’d really love to have a look at these no-doubt fine strapping young men that you’ve raised.

Kind regards,

Ed: www.mambaonline.com

PS: I don’t have anything to do with Rooi Rose, but I’ve also noticed that an awful lot of ‘Eds’ work at magazines. Very strange indeed.